"Your calm and professional manner of response is really draining all the fun out of this. Can you reply more like Dr. Fagbot or something? Call me some names, mention some sand in my vagina or something of the sort. You can't expect me to come up with reasonable arguments man!" -- MaverickZ

I had a allograft surgery along with repair of a bucket handle tear of the meniscus, torn MCL and crack in the cartiledge on Feb 29th of this past year. Had the injury in mid Dec. of 07.

The doctor recommended the cadaver graft for me because of my age (39) and stated that it would be more stable than my own ligaments due to the fact that they only took from donors under 30 and due to the as he said it "taking from Peter to pay Paul" aspect would not really benefit someone my age.

Pre-surgery exercises- Did them for about four weeks prior to surgery and think it really helped, my range of motion recovered quicker than usual according to my doctor. Due to the cartiledge tear my resistance rehab was delayed a couple of weeks.

Supplements- took fish oil, glucosomine, chondrotine, MSM and vitamin C. Apparently the C helps with the glucosomine work better don't know why that is what I was told by the PT.

Rehab- find out what you can do as far as home therapy/rehab and do it. I was given things to do with a maximum number of times a day, max reps and resistance loads. I did all of it and once the cartiledge tear was healed I was progressing a lot better than the people that only did rehab on the days they saw the PT. It will be painful at first especially the range of motion exercises but push through it.

Don't rush things, when I was going through rehab there was a girl that had torn her acl about six months before I did she pushed her rehab too hard and did things she wasn't supposed to and had to have a second surgery the day after mine. I don't wish that on anyone.

Took me four months before I was cleared for light short distance jogging and seven months to be cleared to resume normal activities. Doctor told me to wait a couple of months before resuming any martial arts training so I waited until November and resumed BJJ, going to hold off on any stand up training to focus on getting back where I was in BJJ and the comfort level. One thing is that knee will be on your mind a lot, especially when you start training again. Other than that the knee is fine.

As far as what kind of graft to get, I'd discusss it with your doctor. If you are under 30 he will probably recommend an autograft.

One thing about the allograft, part of the problems with rejection and failure was that they were irradiating the ligament with a higher dosage which they found was having a negative affect with no additional benefit of reducing disease. Also the disease aspect for the most part has been overblown. I couldn't find any statistics about people contracting diseases from an allograft other than no cases of HIV or (I believe) hepatitis have been contracted. Also the age of the donor has a lot to do with it. You don't want a ligament from some 80 year old, hence the case where doctors put an age limit on acceptable donors.

Not telling you this to push you one way or the other, like I said I'd ask the doctor. He gave me the choice of a patellar graft and cadaver. I asked him "if you were me, which would you choose knowing what you know?" I'd recommend you do the same.

I tore both ACLs and had the patella graft done. Its the best bet if you want to be active as the hamstring one weakens your hamstring. I totally trust my ortho and have little to no problems with my knees. Aside from just being older now if I stopped doing MA I would be fine. Since I am not stopping I have just soreness associated with training.

Most of the other post other people told you are true. I have had ACL replaced on both my knees one with Hamstring and the other with Cadaver. I Have had less trouble with the Cadaver and was able to Roll again 6 months out instead of 1 year with the other. Good luck!